The financial industry looms large in the coming primary – and some bankers say they’ll push for the Vermont senator even if his policies could hurt their careers.

A few months ago, Democratic party leaders attended a meeting in New Yorkwith some of the titans of Wall Street, among them heads of brand-name hedge funds and top private equity firms. The gathering was billed not as the usual high-dollar fundraiser but as a bridge-building exercise in which powerful financiers could vent their opinions privately to Democratic bosses.

Two US senators who formed part of the Democratic delegation kicked off the meeting by inviting the financiers to air their concerns about party policy. One of the big name Wall Street figures stood up, proclaimed grandly that he was speaking on behalf of every financial person in the room, and then slammed into the Democratic lawmakers for having had the audacity…

The suit challenges the NYPD’s use of controversial nuisance abatement actions. It cites ProPublica and The Daily News’ investigation into the issue.

The New York Police Department got an order kicking a family of four out of their Queens apartment by telling a judge it was a drug den — but the dealers had moved out seven months earlier.

A lawsuit to be filed in Brooklyn Federal Court on Tuesday details an egregious case of the NYPD’s use of the nuisance abatement law — a controversial tool in which cops are able to get a temporary order barring people from their homes without first giving them the opportunity to appear before a judge.

The bungled operation left Austria Bueno, 32, a housekeeper, crashing at a hotel and on a relative’s floor, beside her two sons…

Zerohedge:

Why should we care?

Because Wells Fargo received a $25 billion dollar bailout and Goldman received $10 billion in one bailout and $13 billion in another.

Moreover, fraud was one of the main causes of the Great Depression and the Great Recession … which cost tens of trillions of dollars in losses. But nothing has been done to rein in fraud today. And governments have virtually made it official policy not to prosecute fraud criminally. (Background.)

Fraud is an economy-killer, and trying to prevent deflation while allowing a breakdown in the rule of law is like pumping blood into a patient without suturing his gaping wounds.

Looks like Sanders got underneath Dimon’s skin…

Jamie Dimon waved a placard at Bernie Sanders in his annual shareholders letter on Wednesday.

It says, in effect: “Don’t Bite the Hand That Feeds Us.

With the Democratic presidential primary battle coming to New York on April 19, including firebrand Sanders who frequently bashes Wall Street, the JPMorgan Chase chief executive sang a different tune in the letter.

Dimon argued that big banks such as JP Morgan, with structures that span corporate and investment banking, perform “mission-critical services . . . that regional and community banks simply cannot do.”

Read on.

And here is Dimon’s annual shareholder letter. Click here. Check out the section under “The Banking Industry is Critical.”

…should anyone who owns a home that is subject to claims of securitization of their mortgage be at risk of losing their property?

…the government should stop the arrogant policy of letting most of the burden fall onto middle class property owners.

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So we have another “settlement” with one of the major players in the greatest economic crime in human history. But the cover-up of the actual transgressions  emanating from corruption on Wall Street continues. Government investigators should have had a press conference in which they clearly stated the nature of the violations — all of them. People deserve to hear the truth; and the government should stop the arrogant policy of letting most of the burden fall onto the middle class property owners.

The defects in government intervention give rise the illusion that these settlements only have effect on the…

Isn’t that the truth…And this another example of a financial firm that admits that they misled their own investors (just like Wells Fargo settlement last week that admitted that they misled their investors in mortgage sales) and yet no criminal charges in both cases.

Vice News:

In the complaints released Monday, the Department of Justice accused Goldman of misleading its own investors as to the strength of its mortgage-backed securities it was selling between 2005-2007. In 2006, for example, Goldman purchased a package of mortgages from a company called New Century Mortgage Corporation. Goldman’s own employees reviewed the loans and flagged them for “extremely aggressive underwriting” practices — meaning New Century’s employees were selling mortgages to buyers who couldn’t afford them, using shoddy documentations, and dubious financial models.
Internally, Goldman then took a close look at a third of those New Century Loans, to see if they were truly healthy…

Professor Bill Black is now Sen. Bernie Sanders’ economic adviser. Bravo!

By William K. Black
April 7, 2016     Bloomington, MN

I am now officially an economic advisor to Senator Sanders, and this column reflects some of that advice.  Part of my advice is not to take money from Wall Street felons.   (I am not taking credit for Bernie’s decision — at most I supported a decision he had already made over a year ago.)  One of the reasons I reinforced Bernie’s decision was witnessing the problems President Obama experienced given his taking very large contributions from Wall Street.  I channeled the prescient warning that Professor Thomas Ferguson (U. Mass, Boston) gave a group of us in 2008.  He predicted, accurately, that Obama would not lead an effective crackdown on the endemic fraud by Wall Street elites that caused the financial crisis.  Tom (he is a personal friend) is the…

Remember the days when Bernie was ignored and laughed at by the mainstream press? Apparently those days are over.

How so, you might ask?

Well, the Washington Post favored us with an unabashed corporate propaganda piece disguised as an “op-ed” by GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt. Its title: “GE CEO: Bernie Sanders says we’re ‘destroying the moral fabric’ of America. He’s wrong.”

Immelt (or more likely, his PR department) had this to say:

We at GE were interested to read comments Monday by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who told the New York Daily News editorial board that GE is among the companies that are supposedly “destroying the moral fabric” of America. The senator had been asked to cite examples of corporate greed at its worst. Somehow that got him to talking about us.

That’d be great, except Bernie never uttered the phrase “GE is destroying the moral fabric of America.” The…